Governing through Reason
Faith, Hope and Charity
Faith, Hope and Charity
When this election season started, I figured I’d be writing lots of blog posts handicapping the candidates and remarking on the ups and downs of a rough-and-tumble campaign.
I didn’t think I’d be writing an informal series on the Republican War on Women.
It all started back in February, when I wrote “Inconceivable”. When the House leadership came to power in the 2010 Republican landslide, they promised to focus on job creation. Who knows why they abandoned this approach, or whether they even intended to implement it in the first place. For reasons that passeth all understanding, they decided they were elected on a socially conservative agenda and began to champion a set of regressive and destructive social policies.
No longer was 9.4% unemployment, with many running out of time in their benefits, any problem. Those people turned out to be moochers, not makers, in David Brooks’ famous phrasing. They were the 47 percent who were going to vote for Obama anyway. Nothing we can do to get their votes, Republicans apparently figured.
Source: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/section-4-values-about-government-and-the-social-safety-net/6–4-12-v-63/
Charity, at least in the form of government assistance, used to be viewed as a good thing by all Americans. As recently as the Reagan year of 1987, a majority of Republicans joined a larger majority of Democrats and independents in agreeing with the statement “It’s the government’s responsibility to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.” Democratic and independent support for this proposition has remained steadily high, but Republican agreement has plummeted. Now a minority of Republicans believe in government assistance, a 35-percentage-point gap between Republicans and Democrats. When one mixes in Federal fiscal discipline, the gap becomes even larger, a whopping 45 percent. Sixty-five percent of Democrats think the government should help the needy, even if it means more debt, while only 20 percent of Republicans agree.
T
here’s also a gender gap: in the latest Pew poll, 64 percent of women and 54 percent of men agreed that “the government should guarantee every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep. ”
So damn the women! Let’s declare an undeclared War on Women! (Or caterpillars!)
One of my earliest encounters with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was in a rudimentary version of what we’d now call Computer Camp, in 1974. I went to Movie Night at Brigham Young University, and they were showing Hawaii. During the early scene in which the Congregationalist missionaries pray over their meal of New England Pot Roast or some such, I heard a whisper go through the audience. Finally, my ears and mind resolved what was being whispered: Calvinists! Calvinists! Then there was a series of giggles. Apparently, the Calvinist philosophy was beyond the pale for Mormons in 1974.
Not today. Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney has endorsed Indiana Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock, who famously said at a debate Tuesday:
Life is that gift from God. I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen.
So, if I follow this tortured theology, God cannot prevent the rape from happening in the first place but His word can prevent a woman from seeking an abortion. According to Todd Akin and the particular conservative school of theology to which he and Mourdock apparently belong, “legitimate rape” cannot result in conception through God’s divine intervention. Therefore, if it does, then God must have intended for it to be.
I understand the idea that life begins at conception, but if this is so, then how can one justify killing another human being in war? With drone strikes? Or how can one justify state-sponsored executions of criminals?
Did God intend for Trayvon Martin to be killed?
If everything is preordained, then the poor are poor because they damn well deserve to be. God makes them moochers. Who are we to interfere?
Charity was apparently not an option, therefore, for the Class of 2010 Republican legislators. On to Hope.
How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?
— Sarah Palin, February 2010 National Tea Party Convention speech
Perhaps Hope was not an option, either.
Faith! The Republican Party still has Faith! Not the greatest of these, mind you, but Faith will have to do as the rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born on November 6.
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#3 written by shortchain 7 months ago
Monotreme,
Fear. Fear of the “other”. It lurks in the dark recesses of everyone’s lizard brain, and, when people start seeing a whole lot of people in the news who clearly don’t belong to the same clan or tribe, it changes their perspective on charity and social justice.Back in 1987 this country (or at least its public face, the image portrayed in the media, and that you saw around you on a day-to-day basis) was a lot less culturally diverse.
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#4 written by rgbact 7 months ago
I think alot of people recognize the shift from government
offering programs to help the poor to government creating entitlement
programs for middle and even upper classes. It makes alot of sense as its a great way to get votes. The federal government
especially is one where increasignly new taxes are to be levied on 1% of
people.….often so middle class types can get subsidized college or a
subsidized mortgage or cheap birth control and erectile dysfunction
drugs. This is not a safety net.…its an entitlement society. So I don’t feel gross for voting “against the poor” as I don’t really think thats ultimately who is benefiting from alot of the recent increase in government. Wall Street, college debt ridden lit majors, underwater McMansion owners, tenured teachers .…..I don’t feel bad for any of them -
#5 written by shortchain 7 months ago
rgbact,
And yet, the biggest winners of the last 30 years aren’t the lit majors, mcmansion owners, and, most especially not winners, tenured teachers — it’s the top 1 percent of income and wealth. And those people didn’t get that rich from “entitlements” — they got rich from a swing away from progressive taxation. -
#6 written by rgbact 7 months ago
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@rgb… This is not a safety net.…its an entitlement society.
I want to probe your views on this. As a citizen of the United States (as opposed to Bangladesh, or Somalia) what is a person entitled to, specifically? What can he/she reasonably expect government to provide as a right of citizenship?I know… “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” but what does that mean specifically? What if my life depends on access to health care that I am unable to provide for myself through disability or indigence? What if being forced to bear my rapist’s child deprives me of both liberty and happiness… can the government still force me to do it?
Mostly I just wonder why you think “entitlement” is such a bad thing. In any human situation… marraige, business contracts, personal partnerships… there are certain things we are entitled to. They are one side of a coin. The other side is responsibility. We have resposibilities to others, and things we are entitled to expect from them. This is the real social contract. Without it, society ceases to function and anarchy ensues.
It is dishonest to live within a society (and benefit from it) while disavowing the very social construct that makes it possible.
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#8 written by shortchain 7 months ago
@filistro,
Yes, I’m often struck, when reading what right-leaning people write, by the underlying assumption that it’s everyone’s — especially the poor and dispossessed — responsibility to respect property rights (which are the only reason rich people stay rich, as, without property rights, they would be able to hold only the property they can defend), but the rich have no responsibility beyond their gracious charity (if any) to the society which allowed them to grow so rich. -
I am also puzzled this mornng by Republicans and the way they seem increasingly uncoupled from reality. We have their presidential candidate endorsing this candidate who says women should be forced by law to bear their rapist’s child. As far as I can see, women everywhere are shocked, outraged and motivated. Yet this morning’s top item at The Corner trumpets the fact that Romney has “erased the gender gap” (based on a single poll from AP-GfK)… after Nate Silver just three days ago published an extensive, in depth analysis showing the gender gap at historic highs.
NRO is also running multiple articles doing serious examinations of why Obama lost the election. Was he too complacent? Did he run too far to the left?… even though the electoral college has now solidified, by every analysis, at 290+ for Obama.
Conservatives at every site constantly boast about how Romney will “repeal Obamacare” as soon as he takes office… despite the fact that Democrats are clearly on track to increase their Senate majority.
Is this wilful blindness? Whistling past the graveyard? Sheer, baseless hubris? I find it astonishing. And yet I’m seeing it everywhere.
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#10 written by Mainer 7 months ago
Fili there was time when being a conservative person and having conservative habits was looked on as a good thing. Hell many of them were quite progressive. I don’t think of Ike as being a liberal but he sure as hell was progressive. Unfortunately as a part of the Republican war on words we now have people that are nothing more than anarchists claiming to be conservative. The current crop of conservatives will not be happy unless and until they dismantle every thing they espouse to love. But being the people they are they love nothing but money and power. They loudly proclaim their Christianess but their actions are any thing but the christian values I was taught as a child.
There is a simple answer but it isn’t pretty. Hang all Republican politicians and hang at least some of their supporters twice. Until there is a pay back for some of this bullshit we are living in they will just keep pushing. We can restore reality but it is going to take some very ugly moments to accomplish it. Not the America I thought I would be leaving my son’s and their families but apparently it is.
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@filistro,
Part of it is that conservatives are genuinely divorced from reality. Part is that conservative strategists are trying to create reality through a sense of
entitlementinevitability. Part is that they see themselves actually entitled (that is, in the old British sense, they hold claim to titles). Remember when Bush began acting as if he already was President, even while the Florida recount was still going on? How he began announcing his Cabinet, and was making plans to move into the White House while people in Florida were still doing the recount?Part is they are trying to set up the narrative, after they lose, that the elections were stolen from them, that the Democrats who won are in their office illegitimately. Thus, they can a) pretend the public didn’t endorse progressive principles (justifying continued obstructionism), and b) start setting up their strategy for 2014, running against people who shouldn’t have been allowed to take their oaths of office anyway.
There are going to be a lot of FOX watchers who are honestly shocked that Romney lost and that Democrats picked up seats in both Houses of Congress It will confirm the dark fantasies of widespread voter fraud. It will stoke their anger, convince them all the more that America has become the victim of a socialist takeover. This is the equivalent of the January 2009 Republican strategy meeting in The Caucus Room while President Obama’s inauguration was taking place — it is the scheme for the Republican 2014 campaign. They intend to run against what they will claim was a coup d’état.
You read it here first.
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By the way, in all the presidential campaigns I’ve watched, in the closing days the loser always enthusiastically proclaims, “The momentum has shifted my way! I’m going to win! I can feel it!” I recall this coming even from Michael Dukakis. Part of it is the genuine optimism that a candidate needs in order to keep going. Part is the cheerleading that the campaign workers need or they will quit.
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@Mainer… We can restore reality but it is going to take some very ugly moments to accomplish it.
Mainer, I know you are pessimistic these days and have a dark view of politics… but little by little, and very reluctantly, I find myself beginning to agree with you. I think there may well be some dark times ahead for America.… and this is happening because a specific form of self-serving, power-based religion has been allowed to become so dominant in American politics.
If the time comes when America fights another civil war, it will not be fought on racial or geographic lines but on religious ones. It will be the secular population in opposition to the “Christianists”… the ones who, like Islamists, have taken a great religion and are twisting it to their own greedy, cynical, power-hungry ends.
There is a reason for the kind of anti-woman rhetoric and subtle legislative encroachment that Treme refers to in this article. When any fundamentalist movement seeks to gain power within a society, their very first step is always to subjugate women.
If anybody doubts the ability of people using religion as a tool to deform and destroy social order… remember that Jim Jones was able to motivate almost a thousand ordinary people to commit mass suicide.. and kill their own children... in the name of religion. It is a readily available means of gaining awesome, terrible power over people. That’s why it needs to be kept entirely out of politics.
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#14 written by Max 7 months ago
One can easily take from the Mourdock statement that the pregnancy, being God’s will, being the result of a rape, that is ALSO GOD’S WILL! That God ordained the rape. God, being omniscient and omnipotent, KNEW the pregnancy would result, and allowed the rape to happen.
The latter being inescapable from the former.
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#15 written by WA7th 7 months ago
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#16 written by rgbact 7 months ago
Mostly I just wonder why you think “entitlement” is such a bad thing
So can I assume you agree somewhat with my notion that Democrats are trying to protect an entitlement net for the non-poor as much as the safety net? Anyway, one man’s entitlement is another man’s obligation. I’m just predisposed to not favor that. I’m more into self-reliance. Also politicians buying off the masses with promises of entitlements invariably leads to overpromises. Greece is a fine example. Its even worse for the US because Americans in general have “larger appetites” for things than more minimalist cultures. However, I would be totally fine with people in Vermont passing a law for free college or free child care for its citizens.
remember that Jim Jones was able to motivate almost a thousand ordinary people to commit mass suicide..
Jim Jones was selling hope of a socialist utopia. He went to San Francisco specifically cuz he knew that would sell well there. Not many other preachers run to San Fran to setup a church.
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@rgb.. Greece is a tiny rocky peninusla with an economy made up of 85% tourism and service sector. The United States is a huge land mass with 400 million people and one of the richest resource bases in the world. The United States is never, never, NEVER going to become like Greece.
The scaremongering about “becoming Greece” is purely driven by the portion of the American population that wishes to continue exploiting the strength and diversity (and that huge resource base) to increase its own weatlh. But they are too greedy and short-sighted to see that this is a self-defeating goal. America became a great nation by attracting a huge, needy population. It invited this population… Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore... and put them to work to build a nation.
Now a portion of America wishes to rescind its obligations to the very people it used to build its wealth, and break its compact with those who remain needy. If it does, prosperity will decline for all, and America will no longer be a great nation… or a good one, either.
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#18 written by shortchain 7 months ago
rgbact,
The problem with restricting “entitlements” to the very poor is that they don’t have (as yet) the political clout to protect them. If you look at all the “entitlement” programs you object to so strongly, you’ll notice that they were made available to all for the simple reason that, absent that, the programs could not be passed.People aren’t that altruistic. Make an entitlement program that benefits only somebody else, and you wouldn’t support it either, which is why, back before these “entitlement” programs, people tended to have large families and be very, very careful not to land in the poorhouse — because the poorhouse (or county farm) was a very bad place to land.
There is simply no mechanism by which society can protect those who truly need protection without that protection falling into the laps of some who don’t need it. “The law, in its wisdom, prohibits the rich from sleeping under bridges just as it prohibits the poor.” If you don’t give the wealthy SS benefits, pretty soon you’ll be giving nobody SS benefits. Which is what the wealthy would prefer, of course — until they have to increase funding for the county poorhouse or see people starving in the street.
Which is why “entitlements” are everyone’s obligation, not a boon to one person and a bane to another.
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#19 written by Rose 7 months ago
I think a major turning point was George HW Bush’s thousand points of light. This was a turning away from government’s having responsibility for social programs and dependence on private groups. That was fine (actually, it wasn’t) when charities had ample resources, however today food banks and ho eless shelters are stretched past the breaking point.
Religious organizations, while doing good, often subject the recipients of their charity to proseletyzing. To those who don’t share faith, this is insulting and demeaning.
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#20 written by Rose 7 months ago
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#21 written by mostlyilurk 7 months ago
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rgbact,
Do you take a mortgage interest deduction?
(In the interests of transparency: I do.)
Are you aware that
In America the housing subsidy to the richest fifth (through mortgage-interest relief) is four times the amount spent on public housing for the poorest fifth.
Who’s getting “entitlements” now?
“I shouted out ‘Who killed the Kennedys?’ / When after all / It was you and me.”
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#23 written by channelclemente 7 months ago
Perhaps I’m naïve, but it doesn’t seem to me that the issues across the continuüm from Liberal to Conservative are really about “entitlements” at all. I think it’s the same argument that’s been raging for centuries between reason and faith as a standard for belief. I think entitlements are such a “bloody” battleground because that ought to be the property of a faith based community but has been co-opted by secular humanist as a rational expectation to be addressed in the context reasoned action by government. The battle was really on when ‘we’ called tax advantages to the wealthy a privilege and not a right. At that point it became welfare by any rational standard and no one likes being called a hypocrite based on ones acceptance of an article of faith.
I think the most anger I’ve ever encountered was once upon a time pointing out after a sermon on ‘good acts in life being the keys to wealth in ones secular life’, that Christian phrase “sooner a camel through the eye of a needle, than a rich man into heaven”. It never pays to point out that Christ was a communist, even when you’re 20 and clearly eligible for the fruits of forgiveness.…and yes I am smiling.
By the way, Paul Kurtz died last week.
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#24 written by channelclemente 7 months ago
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#25 written by channelclemente 7 months ago
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#26 written by Armchair Warlord 7 months ago
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#28 written by channelclemente 7 months ago
Have no fear, you’re going to die anyway. All kidding aside. This editorial is from The National Review (don’t chortle) about Muordoch the Morlock’s mistaken POV in his abortion BS and is very revealing in terms of the semantics and differences in idiom and word’s meaning that confuse dialog between liberals and conservatives. Their use and meaning of the words ‘reason’ and ‘science’ are particularly revealing.
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#29 written by channelclemente 7 months ago
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#28 CC,
Thanks for that. You’re right in that “science” tells us nothing of the sort. I am also disturbed by the supposition (of which I have no evidence) that the Editors who wrote this Op-Ed piece are in favor of the death penalty and drone strikes. Their facile claim that
[a no exception for rape] position is, however, more than defensible, and it follows logically from very widely shared pro-life premises.
is a version of the “magic underpants” argument. “I say it’s logical, therefore it’s logical.”
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#31 written by Armchair Warlord 7 months ago
fili,
The similarities are eerie. The average Confederate soldier fought fanatically in what he believed was the defense of his liberty and livelihood from Yankee assault, yet the only thing endangering his liberty and livelihood were (through conscription, draconian military law and harsh war taxation) his own political leaders. He owned no slaves and would not have been threatened in any way by the abolition or restriction of slavery, the protection of which was written into the Confederate constitution no less than three times.
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Colin Powell today endorsed President Obama for a second term. He has some harsh words to say about Romney’s foreign “policy,” and some very supportive things about President Obama’s first term.
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#34 written by Max 7 months ago
AW,
Would you please cite, from the Confederate Constitution, those three “protections of slavery”?
As far as I know, there was only ONE, and it was that any Confederate Territories could not outlaw the practice. Once that territory became a state, there was no such prohibition, and a state could make its own decision on slavery.
After all, in a “states rights” confederation, the national government telling a state government what it could and could not do is anathema.
I’d be interested in where I missed that.
Thanks
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#35 written by channelclemente 7 months ago
Mono,
apparently the RNC and Romney have been carpet bombing one district in Maine in anticipation of a near tie in the EC.
Also, logic is just a set of rules (much like capitalism) that define an algorithm you can apply in many places. As you intuit, it’s the premise and assumptions with which it’s applied that dictate it’s utility at finding any ‘truth(s)’. That sort of implies to me that in discussions with fellows like rgbact, for instance, getting those basic assumptions agreed upon might be a way at expediting useful conversation. However, my experience (here and elsewhere), sooner or later it comes to act of faith (not necessarily religious) that’s the nexus of disagreement.
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@cc… However, my experience (here and elsewhere), sooner or later it
comes to act of faith (not necessarily religious) that’s the nexus
of disagreement.
Absolutely. For instance, if you are having a discussion on taxes with somebody who fundamentally beleives, right down to his toes, that cutting taxes increases federal revenues, then you can show him charts and graphs till you’re blue in the face and you will make no progress toward consensus. In fact, there is evidence (I believe it was Mac who once told us this?) from various studies proving that the presentation of contrary evidence actually tends to strengthen such misconceptions… not change them. -
cc,
That is a fascinating piece from the National Review. Not only does it mis-state science and reason, it also oversimplifies and misrepresents Christian theology.
I started to write some thoughts — and before I knew it, I had almost a thousand words. I think it’s going to become a new Old Time Religion article for this Sunday. It’s on a topic I’ve wanted to write about for a long time anyway. It’s time to confront it head-on. Stay tuned.
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You all need to check out the Republican Party Rape Advisory Chart and Volume II. Both were created on a blog by connecticutie.
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#39 written by channelclemente 7 months ago
filli, dc,
you’re right, we both say ‘Earth’ but their’s has an edge and you can fall off it, ours not so much.
I started reading NR almost a year ago, just to kind of grasp the Right’s Reality. IMO, it’s an alien landscape right out of Lewis Carroll. They have a regular readership of 10–15 thousand, and the responses to polls run there are revealing about what is often called ‘wingnut’ thought. For instance the current poll is on Ohio’s certainty in the GOP camp. ~60% of their readership is dyspeptic over the outcome in Ohio. It sort of shoots down Romney’s party line, IMO. -
Tina Fey weighs in on Republican men and rape:
“Todd Akin claims that women can’t really get pregnant from a legitimate rape because the body secretes hormones,” Fey told the crowd. “Now I can’t even finish this sentence without getting dumber; it’s making me dumber when I say it — but it’s something about the body not being able to get pregnant when it’s under physical stress. Mr. Akin, I think you are confusing the phrase ‘legitimate rape’ with the phrase ‘competitive gymnastics.’ ”
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#41 written by Armchair Warlord 7 months ago
Max,
Three explicit protections of slavery as the law of the land in the Confederacy.
And don’t give me that line about the Confederate government giving a damn about states’ rights — the federal Confederate government trampled that concept enthusiastically once it was set in power.
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#42 written by Max 7 months ago
I beg to disagree.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 1, forbids importation of slaves from outside the Confederacy, and only allows for transport within the CSA. This is not a “protection” of the institution, only a regulation thereof.
Clause 2, is a reiteration of the same importation ban. Again this is not a “protection” of the institution, but a regulation thereof.
Clause 4, prevents the Confederate Congress from passing any law prohibiting slavery. It does not enjoin any State from doing so. This is the same as any of the US Constitution clauses that state “Congress shall pass no law …”.
In fact, when one goes to Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1, it is obvious that inherent in IV(2)(1), there is the real possibility that individual States MAY PASS laws OUTLAWING slavery, because the Clause allows “pass-through” privileges:
Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1, allows the SAME “privileges and immunities” as does IV(2), the “full faith and credit” clause of the US Constitution. As above, no actual protection of the institution itself.Finally, Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3, is the one I mentioned earlier.
And Wiki is flat WRONG when it states IV(3)(3) is, “another clause that states slavery shall be recognized in all new states that join …”. It DOES NOT say that. It explicitly says, “ In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government …”. It says NOTHING about protection of slavery in a state that joined the Confederacy after being a territory.
In fact, other than IV(3)(3), the Confederate Constitution addresses slavery in almost EXACTLY the same manner as did the US Constitution. From it’s inception, through the Civil War and until the passage of the 13th Amendment!
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#43 written by channelclemente 7 months ago
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#44 written by Armchair Warlord 7 months ago
Max,
Disregarding the importation issues (which I never included in the count):
I-9–4 clearly states that no bill of attainder, ex-post-facto law or law impairing slavery shall be passed. It does not specify whether this applies only to the Confederate Congress, but it clearly applies to states as well as the federal government, as I do not recall states in our present system being able to pass ex-post-facto laws under the same clause in the US Constitution. Any attempt by them to do so would be challenged and shot down in federal court as clearly unconstitutional under that clause. The wording is quite clear.
IN FACT, if your interpretation of the wording is correct, then the Second Amendment is NOT APPLICABLE to states (the Confederate version is in I-9–13) and they may make any arms control laws they wish. This has been found, quite recently, to not be the case.
IV-2–1 reinforces I-9–4. As I mentioned earlier, the Confederate constitution entrenched slavery extremely deeply in the law. It’s quite pedantic on the subject.
IV-3–3 guarantees slavery in all Confederate territories, thus effectively guaranteeing that they would never attempt to join the Confederacy as a free state (which would in and of itself be unconstitutional under I-9–4). It was a direct response to Lincoln’s line in the sand regarding the expansion of slavery into the West.
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#45 written by Max 7 months ago
AW,
I urge you to research contemporary analyses of the Confederate Constitution by a number of legal scholars. I believe that you will find they typically agree with the analysis I presented, as I cannot claim original opinion on the interpretations.
Your comment concerning the Second Amendment is NOT applicable here. Please note my complete comment above, and then please tell me where the 2nd Amendment forbids Congress from acting. It is a statement affirming a “natural right” of all citizens in every jurisdiction of the United States.
You missed the discussion that we had here about two years ago on this very subject.
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#46 written by Armchair Warlord 7 months ago
Max,
Then cite an analysis that lines up with your interpretation.
Furthermore, the Constitution does not really prevent Congress or any State from making any law — unconstitutional laws are made routinely, or otherwise the Supreme Court wouldn’t be as busy as it is. What it does do is prevent unconstitutional laws from standing when challenged in the courts.
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@Max
tell me where the 2nd Amendment forbids Congress from
acting. It is a statement affirming a “natural right” of all
citizens in every jurisdiction of the United States.I didn’t miss the discussion from two years ago. Your position was clear. That doesn’t mean it is correct.
Can you point me toward any body of court rulings in the United States that upholds the idea of “natural rights”? Specifically, is there a single SCOTUS ruling that firearm ownership is a “natural right”?
Regardless, let’s pretend for a moment that you’re correct. Doesn’t that
mean a law that which would, say, outlaw gun ownership would be ruled
unconstitutional? -
#48 written by Max 7 months ago
AW,
I recommend The Confederate Constitution of 1861 by Marshall DeRossa as a starter. Tell me what you think.
Article V, Section 2, is exactly like the 10th Amendment. Since I-9–4 is a part of the powers for the Congress (just like Article I of the Original), it is not for the individual States. It is wrong to conflate the two.
Also, note that, except for the territorial rules, and specifically stating that the Confederate Congress could “pass no law”, every other mention of slavery (which word the FF were not honest enough to use in 1787) follows along with the US Constitution. Fugitive slave clause, non-importation. It’s directly out of the Original. -
#49 written by Max 7 months ago
dc,
Do you really want to go there, again? Let me rephrase: Replace “natural” with “unalienable”. The “body” is the Declaration.
“ Your position was clear. That doesn’t mean it is correct.” There was not a conclusive rebuttal of that position. Nor has AW presented a sufficient rebuttal as of yet.
“Doesn’t that mean a law that which would, say, outlaw gun ownership would be ruledunconstitutional?” See the SCOTUS decisions on the subject for the current legal opinions and standings. I accept those as prevailing law.
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#50 written by Rose 7 months ago
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#51 written by Armchair Warlord 7 months ago
Max,
I don’t suppose you have anything… pithier on the subject? This is a debate, not a book club.
Section 9 contains numerous clauses which have absolutely nothing to do with congressional powers, particularly 12–19, which mirror Bill of Rights provisions. As there is no language whatsoever in clause 4 specifying that it only applies to actions of the Federal Confederate Congress it is safe to conclude that it would be applied to the actions of state legislatures as well. That is, unless you would care to suggest that, say, the legislature of Texas may create law ex-post facto and it would stand in court.
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#52 written by Max 7 months ago
AW,
Sorry, I was not a bit clearer last night, but I had at least 3 other things going on, including watching Michael’s Giants again defeating rgbact’s Tigers. Sorry rg, I”m pulling for the Tigers.
The similarities between the two constitutions are many. The two Preambles give the initial blueprints. Especially read the differences in the CSA Preamble! (Key phrase: each State acting in its sovereign and independent character…) In the US Constitution (UCon), the defining of the Legislative branch and it’s powers and limits (and limits on States) in Article I; Executive; Article II; Judicial; Article III; the powers of the national government and relations with States; Article IV: etc. This same “floorplan” pretty much applies to the CSA Constitution (CCon).
View Article I, Sections 7–9, of the CCon as matching that of UCon Art. I, Sections 7–9, the Duties and Powers of Congress, and Limits on Congressional Power. Except that CCon Section 9 also contains the equivalent of the US Bill of Rights. Also, the UCon, Section 9, Limits on Congress fall within CCon Section 9. Finally, Section 10, IN BOTH CONSTITUTIONS, define the limits on the States.
So, you find the “ex post facto” and “habeus” as well as the “No Preference” clauses in the equivalent places in BOTH. Would you argue that the No Preference clause applies to the States under the UCon? Nope, simply does not apply.
And can you point out anywhere in CCon Section 10, Limits on States, forbidding the States from passing anti-slavery laws? Nope, it ain’t there. And, by the structure of BOTH CONSTITUTIONS, that is precisely where such law would be proscribed! And this is why I stated above that the writer of the Wiki article is “flat WRONG” in their statement.
Then in Article IV, BOTH Constitutions, duties of the States to each other and the National Government to the States, we find the “full faith and credit” and “privileges and immunities” clauses. We also find the “Fugitive Slave” clause. In the CCon, Section 2, Clause 1 and 3, there exists the equivalent clauses to the UCon. Clause 1, “privileges and immunities” gives the right of transport without interference, such that if a State had passed anti-slavery laws (not barred in Art. I-10), a slaveowner from another State could pass through without fear of losing his property. And finally, Clause 3 is the CCon equivalent of the “Fugitive Slave clause”, and in EXACTLY the same place, IV-2–3, in the UCon.
And on Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3, forbidding anti-slavery laws in the Territories: It would not even be necessary if the limit on anti-slavery legislation was NOT restricted to the National Congress.
So, by a review of the structure and design of the two Constitutions, the relationships of the Powers and Duties of the Congresses, the Limits thereon and the Limits on the States, and the Duties of the States to each other and the National Government to the States, the evidence demonstrates that slavery was NOT protected (except in any Territories, until they became admitted States) at the State level, only that the Confederate Congress could not proscribe it.
And to cite independent authorities, individually, for each of these points would be a chore I do not wish to exercise. The book I referenced spends a lot of time doing so, and can you imagine the length of this already long comment were I including someone else’s authorities. Not when the structure and design of the Constitution, in BOTH cases are authority enough.
Finally, DO NOT make the mistake of imposing hindsight, or the body of laws and SCOTUS decisions of the past 150 years, when analyzing the CCon. Only give it the reading, and context, as would be done in 1862.
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On the subject of gun ownership as a “natural right”:
Replace “natural” with “unalienable”.
No, let’s not. You said “natural”. We’ll discuss that.
I asked what body of laws uses the idea of “natural rights”, specifically as pertaining to gun ownership:
The “body” is the Declaration.
Three things:
1) Gun ownership is not listed among the “unalienable rights” enumerated there. True, the Declaration does imply there are “unalienable rights” in addition to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If you can add gun ownership, I can add sparkly ponies.
2) As I said previously, “unalienable” is not the same word as “natural”. “Natural rights” are no where mentioned in the Declaration.
3) The Declaration of Independence is not a “body of law”, and is therefore not what I asked for anyway..On our previous discussion:
“ Your position was clear. That doesn’t mean it is correct.” There was not a conclusive rebuttal of that position.
I could declare the Second Amendment to be “a slice of lemon juice.” Ther can be no conclusive rebuttal to that either, because it too is a meaningless phrase. That doesn’t mean my stance is correct.
You introduced a concept that (as far as I know) has no legal meaning or standing withing US jurisprudence or constitutional law. I don’t even know what “natural right” means, or how it would affect anything. That could be a function merely of my ignorance. Show me where “natural right” is mentioned in the Constitution or in SCOTUS rulings, or how it has been used in court to justify gun ownership.
We got on this tangent because of the idea that because a “right” is mentioned in a constitution, that doesn’t forbid the legislature from restricting that right:
“Doesn’t that mean a law that which would, say, outlaw gun ownership would be ruled unconstitutional?” See the SCOTUS decisions on the subject for the current legal opinions and standings. I accept those as prevailing law.
You sidestepped my objection. Well, actually, you confirmed it. In point of fact, a right” enumerated in the Constitution does mean that the Supreme Court would rule attempts to negate that right as unconstitutional.
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#54 written by Max 7 months ago
dc,
” I don’t even know what “natural right” means, or how it would affect anything. That could be a function merely of my ignorance.” OK, so here are a couple definitions:
From Wiki: “Natural rights are rights not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable. In contrast, legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by the law of a particular political and legal system, and therefore relative to specific cultures and governments.”Unalienable: “Things which are not in commerce, as public roads, are in their nature unalienable. Some things are unalienable, in consequence of particular provisions in the law forbidding their sale or transfer, as pensions granted by the government. The natural rights of life and liberty are unalienable.” Bouviers Law Dictionary 1856 Edition.
John Locke, whose concepts of rights were the basis of the revolution, the Declaration and thus the Constitution, held that natural rights included “life, liberty and property”. If, at it’s basic level, self-preservation, the right to defend oneself, with one’s personal property, arms, meets two of those three, life and property.US Constitution, 2nd Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Notice that the 2nd DOES NOT SAY “the people shall have the right”. It DOES SAY “the right of the people”, the recognition of a right that previously existed. IOW, a natural, unalienable right as opposed to a legal right bestowed by the Constitution. And then it goes on to say that that right “shall not be infringed”. The right to property is generally a natural right.dc, with due respect, we have beat this ground into fine dust. You have voiced your opinion, with which I respectfully disagree. I have presented definitions and cases that back my points. Unless you can present definitions, laws upheld as constitutional or SOMETHING other than your personal opinion, there is no need to continue as you have yet to make a reasoned rebuttal.
How unreasonable have you carried your opinions? To wit: “I could declare the Second Amendment to be “a slice of lemon juice.” There can be no conclusive rebuttal to that either, because it too is a meaningless phrase.“
Absolutely unreasonable, and easily rebutted as NO ONE would agree with your “slice of lemon juice” and everyone WOULD agree that it is a constitutional amendment pertaining to the right to bear arms.On SCOTUS and natural law, I simply refer you to Griswold and Roe and Lawrence, where the “natural right to privacy”, NOT mentioned in the Constitution, overrode prior laws. So YES, natural law, and right, is recognized by SCOTUS.
So, please, you need to provide more than simply your opinion, mistaken at times, for us to continue. Or else we must simply agree to disagree.
(GROG, I hope you’re paying attention. Perhaps you might like to join in.)
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So, in other words, you have no case history whatever recognizing gun ownership as a “natural right”. You have your interpretation of the Second Amendment, but that interpretation has been tested nowhere, and is, therefor, unproven.
Thank you for expanding on the meaning of the term. I appreciate it. But again, there is no evidence, other than your interpretation, that it applies to gun ownership.
I will also respectfully disagree. If your interpretation was correct, there would be no need for the Second Amendment, just as there is no need to mention “privacy right” in the Constitution, though SCOTUS recognizes the right to privacy anyway.
I think the matter is, for now, unsettled, and must remain so until
there is a court test. You are welcome to your interpretation. I will
hold mine. We will each remain convinced the other is incorrect. -
#56 written by Max 7 months ago
dc,
Yes, the 2nd has a reason, just like the 1st. Would you be so audacious as to say the 1st is unnecessary?
BOTH of those Amendments recognize prior rights that the government cannot abridge/infringe.
SCOTUS case history on the 2nd.? Read Heller and McDonald.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment02/On the 1st.?
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment01/Meanwhile, you have not met the challenge of providing points and authorities for your opinions. NONE.
I neglected the 4th. The three, 1, 2 and 4 all recognize existing, natural, rights. the others in the Bill of Rights constitute legal rights
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#57 written by Armchair Warlord 7 months ago
Max,
Aplogies for the late response, but I also had a number of other things going on.
Even, however, accepting all of your points as given, my original point still stands: the Confederate Constitution included no less than three explicit protections of slavery and the rights of slaveholders. Furthermore, again conceding your entire argument, the only route to emancipation in the Confederacy would have been a state-by-state process (and I think I should bring up that, with “slave territory” the law of the land, no new state would enter the Confederacy free), which I think you and I both know would never happen.
Your entire argument rests on proving that individual Confederate states would have been free to outlaw slavery on their own — as they in all probability never would have attempted to do so, your argument is not even wrong. It’s moot.
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#58 written by Max 7 months ago
AW,
Only if you wish to ignore the evidence as I have presented it, your point still stands. You cannot “accept all of (my) points as given”, and still have the same conclusion. The two are contradictory.
You are conflating emancipation in the CSA with the CSA Constitution.
Let’s just say that, within the next 40 years mechanization proceeded as it did. Tractors and farm equipment would be a LOT cheaper than slaves. Productivity gains and production efficiencies would not be in the same town, much less in the same ballpark. The economy of slavery, already in a severe decline by the 1850’s, would be totally in the pits. (A male slave youth would bring $1500 in 1850. Compare that, in terms of today’s dollars, with the cost of a tractor and implements and productivity) Slavery would have ended by the early 1900’s. Few would have wanted the costs and responsibilities of maintaining slaves and the system. It would have occurred at differing times across the states, but I would have expected, strictly from an economic standpoint, that not later than about 1920 the final curtain would have fallen. Each state in turn would, and could under the CSA Constitution, have ended slavery within its borders.
Because the CSA Constitution did NOT “protect” slavery as an institution within the member States. Only excepting that Confederate territories could not outlaw it. And that is because of the legal relationship of a territory with the national government, same as that between the US government and ITS territories.
On that, I point out that Utah could not become a State as long as it sanctioned polygamy. And you know what happened there. Even the First Amendment didn’t help Utah!
Would the CSA Supreme Court have extended I-9–4 to the individual States? That would be your only argument, and that is NOTHING more than a hypothetical! Look even to I-9–2, which speaks of Congress prohibiting slave importation.
Again, the wording, and the placement within the body of the document, speaks for itself, for those who will listen without 150 years of adverse propaganda and hindsight. And until you can produce a CSA Constitution with a I-10–4 that says “No State shall pass any law prohibiting slavery or interferring with the personal proprety rights of ownership of negro slaves.”, you have no case.
As with dc’s arguments against the 2nd Amendment, you will have to stick with legal points and authorities to make your argument, and leave off the appeals to emotion and hypotheticals.
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#59 written by Max 7 months ago
AW,
Sorry to keep beating you up on this, but one more nail in your whatever. I call your attention to the one clause you have used to hang your argument. I-9–4:
“No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.“
I pointed out that it applied ONLY to the national Congress. I also argued that any proscribing of anti-slavery laws to the States was absent in I-10, “Limits of the States.“
Note in I-10–1 says: ” … ; pass any bill of attainder, or ex post facto law …“
Further making my point of the difference between the Congress and the States. -
Yes, the 2nd has a reason, just like the 1st. Would you be so audacious as to say the 1st is unnecessary?
No. I would say the First is necessary, because it establishes the rights listed. Without it, we would question those rights. That is to say, those rights are guaranteed by the Constitution. They could be revoked by an amendment to the Constitution. The same is true of the Second.
BOTH of those Amendments recognize prior rights that the government cannot abridge/infringe.
“Prior?” No. Legal rights are a function of the particular legal system (in this case, the Constitution.) The whole idea of “rights” is a human construct, created by human laws. Otherwise, prove the existence of god.
Meanwhile, you have not met the challenge of providing points and authorities for your opinions. NONE.
I don’t have to. The claim — that owning a means to kill people is a “natural right” — is your claim. You are requested to provide support for your claim. I make no claim or opinion at all, other than requesting that “the right to own means to kill” is defended.
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By the way, the article you linked says nothing whatever about owning firearms as a “natural right.” I still have seen nothing even hinting at that idea.
The article you linked describes the SCOTUS decision that owning firearms is protected by the Second Amendment. That is my own position. Repeal of the Second Amendment would thus negate the question.
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#62 written by Max 7 months ago
dc,
Sorry, but you need to read 1,2 and 4 and compare the wording of those against others.
(1) “Congress shall make no law …the freedom … the right …”. (2) “… the right … shall not be infringed. (4) “The right of the people … shall not be violated”.
These recognize existing, natural rights and state that they are not to be compromised. The Constitution is not “granting” these as legal rights.Compare with (6) ” … shall enjoy the right …” (14) ” All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law … “
These are grants of legal rights, not recognition of natural, existing ones.Above (#54), I gave you definitions of the differences between the two, after you said you didn’t know what a natural right was!
I encourage you to read the Annotations to the Constitution in Findlaw’s website. On the Second, it gives this: “The Court reasoned that this right is fundamental to the nation’s scheme of ordered liberty, given that self-defense was a basic right recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present . . .”
The Constitution is covered here:http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/constitution/ -
#63 written by Max 7 months ago
“They could be revoked by an amendment to the Constitution. The same is true of the Second.“
Absolutely true. Just like a “Marriage Amendment” can take the current (though abused) legal right of citizens to be treated equally in contracts. Or like a “Personhood Amendment” could remove the right of a woman to determine her body’s use.
So you go ahead and make a really good, convincing argument FOR such Amendments that, for the first time in American history, take away existing rights from citizens. And when those arguments are used to get the two I mentioned above passed and ratified, when they ARE used to quash speech, remember your contribution.
I would submit that you could better serve your cause by determining how, and encouraging such laws, the people that do not responsibly utilize their right to keep and bear arms, who abuse that right, can be better dealt with.
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#64 written by Armchair Warlord 7 months ago
Max,
You misinterpret the thrust of my argument, which was that the Confederacy was a government by and for wealthy slaveowners, primarily aimed at preserving the slave economy and social structure, that brought no benefits to the “99%” of free whites who fought and died for it. And that the Confederate “99%” was manipulated into rebellion by a handful of plutocrats using the argument that their “freedom” was somehow under assault by an encroaching North. Emancipation in the Confederacy is of primary importance to my argument.
You also leave out the small historical fact that Jim Crow didn’t fall in the South until the 1960s, with the assistance of stiff federal intervention into the subject. Economics had nothing to do with it — sheer, naked racism in the states at hand did. Had the Southern States been left to their own devices, Jim Crow would still be around today. You posit that those same states that, post-Reconstruction, fell all over themselves to get as far back to the pre-Civil War racial status quo as possible would have banned slavery if left to their own devices in the officially-pro-slavery Confederacy. That’s ridiculous.
As such, the notion that economic factors would have somehow led to an end to slavery in the Confederacy is patently ridiculous — official bigotry is not economical in any way. A notional “post-war Confederacy” would have retrenched slavery as far as possible heedless of economic or diplomatic consequences and, were the Confederacy not destroyed in subsequent conflict, slavery would still exist in the South today.
Also — I think Prohibition took away rights from American citizens. Just sayin’.
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#65 written by Max 7 months ago
AW,
Then you have changed your argument. The original statement, with which I disagreed, was that the CSA Constitution “protected slavery in at least three places”. You have now wandered far from that original assertion. As I cautioned, one cannot look at that document against the body of laws and history of the last 150 years.
I will stipulate your assertions of the 1% as against the 99% and agree completely.
Jim Crow was distinctly different from ante-bellum slavery, and not falling until the 60’s is irrelevant to the CSA Constitution. I am QUITE sure I know a bit more of Jim Crow than you, as I was raised in the 50’s in SC. I saw firsthand white and colored water fountains, restrooms, waiting rooms, entrances, etc. I saw municipal pools closed rather than integrate. But the new argument you present is not something to bantered about in a few comments. I suggest you might write an article demonstrating an actual relationship.
At some point, I might consider writing an article based on the premise that, morality of owning other humans aside, in economic terms, Jim Crow was worse for blacks than was slavery.
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#66 written by Armchair Warlord 7 months ago
Max,
I have identified the three separate clauses I mentioned and, I believe, adequately explained my rationale to consider them to be protective of the institution of slavery. Your entire point revolves around the hypothetical that a Confederate State could attempt to ban slavery in it’s own borders (although not traffic in slaves across it) and that the Confederacy was a sufficiently “tenther” organization (and, to be honest, most changes to the US Constitution made in the Confederate one are straight Tea Party lines) that this would have stood. However, even if your entire argument is conceded your line of reasoning assumes that Confederate authorities would have acted in a manner entirely inconsistent with their own wartime conduct and the postwar conduct of both Southern state authorities and their ideological heirs, the more recent right-wing politicians.
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#67 written by Max 7 months ago
AW,
No! That is NOT my point, sir. And I am NOT speaking to hypotheticals. Perhaps I did not make myself clear because I was also attempting to deal with your other charges.
I am not going to endlessly repeat myself, giving citations, points and authorities over and over. I am only going to say the following:
The Preamble makes clear that the Confederacy made of “sovereign and independent” States, unlike the Union.
There is nowhere in the CSA Constitution, particularly in Art. I, Section 10 “Limits on the States”, that expressly prohibits any of it’s “sovereign and independent States from banning slavery. But the Congress of the CSA cannot proscribe slavery for the entire nation. Art. IV only addresses the case of privileges and immunities. There would be no purpose of addressing the “pass through” privilege as pertains to slaves and slave ownership, if it were not possible that States could ban slavery within their borders! Thus the CSA Constitution anticipated that there would, at some future time, be States that passed anti-slavery laws. It would not be logical do have such protection if it was anticipated that in all States it would be all slavery, all the time!
Unless you have additional CSA Constitutional citations, or can produce Southern commentaries contemporary with the writing of that Constitution, that provide proof for your assertion, I shall not address the matter again at this time.
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One important thing the Pew charts show is the rightward lurch of the Republican Party since the 1980s. Democrats are about where they were back in ’87. Republicans have fallen steadily father toward the Marie Antoinette school of social policy,
The widening partisan gap is almost entirely on one side of the rift. “The problem is Washington” isn’t hardening partisanism. It is increasingly noxious conservativism.